


time slip

by silverkatana



Category: Super Junior
Genre: Gen, OT13 - Freeform, Second Chances, disbandment but not really, it's finally not a sad ending, kyuhyun is heechul's baby, platonic, timetravel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27005419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverkatana/pseuds/silverkatana
Summary: ... and even if the centuries change, and the universes don't stay the same, i'll find my way back to you.// this time, they're doing it right.
Relationships: Kim Heechul/Park Jungsoo | Leeteuk
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	time slip

**Author's Note:**

> warning: mentions of the car accidents

“It didn’t have to end this way,” Jungsoo remarks quietly, his gaze fixed on the scenery before him, his hands clenching the wheel tightly. The early morning mist coils and unfurls in lethargic grey wisps before them, and the road, half-eaten by the mist, sits empty save for their car that travels down the winding paths at a leisurely pace.

Heechul stares out the window, eyes looking everywhere but nowhere all at once, anywhere but Jungsoo. “But there was no other way,” he breathes out at last, his words settling between them like fine dust; light, but unsettling all the same.

Jungsoo grips the wheel tighter. His knuckles are starting to turn white. “I know,” he bites out, as though it pained him just to admit it. It does. Heechul winces a little at the edge in his tone that he can’t hide, and turns slightly to glance at him, but Jungsoo keeps his gaze trained resolutely on the road, lips pulled into a thin line.

Heechul leans back in the seat, tilting his neck upwards. The sound of him shifting around is the only thing that drifts through the stifling silence. “... I never thought we’d end up taking a drive like this, just the two of us.”

A bitter smile rests itself upon Jungsoo’s lips. “Things tend to happen when you least expect them, after all,” he responds, and the dullness of his tone makes Heechul’s heart clench. It’s not what he’s - what _anyone_ \- is used to. He’s used to energetic Jungsoo, overly-excited Jungsoo. Jungsoo who always spoke with a brightness to his tone, a smile plastered on his face. Jungsoo whose voice was always so light even when he was weighted down with burdens he refused to speak of (although Heechul hated it when he did that). But now the Jungsoo before him is quiet, dangerously so, eyes glinting with tears unshed, an empty expression sitting on his face in replacement of the upward tilt of his lips. Heechul hates it that it hurts him so much; and he hates it that there’s nothing he can do to help it.

“... We did well,” Heechul whispers, choosing his words carefully. “It was so good while it lasted, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Jungsoo replies, and that’s when Heechul sees it - the tears that start from the corner of his right eye, a faint silver glint that grows more prominent in the barely-dawn light the more they flow. “It was the best thing I’ve ever known.”

“The best thing,” Heechul echoes, and before he knows it, he’s having to fight to swallow down the tears that threaten to bubble up in his throat. He bites his lip, struggling to hold them back, and Jungsoo glances over for a split second, his gaze flitting over Heechul’s strained expression.

He sighs lightly, his voice soft, dampened with the gentle accent of sorrow. “It’s okay to cry, you know.”

“I know,” Heechul says hoarsely, reaching up to wipe the corners of his eyes, “But that’ll be like mourning what’s gone. That’ll be like-” He pauses, freezes, the words caught in the back of his throat, the thoughts whirling in pandemonium within his mind. “-Like acknowledging that it’s really all over.”

Jungsoo falls silent.

“Sometimes I think,” Heechul continues speaking, his voice rough, laden with the weight of a thousand regrets, “Where we went wrong. Where everything fell apart, and how. I thought - I really thought this day wouldn’t come. I thought we were formidable, that we would continue on for forever and ever.” His fingers curl into fists, nails pressing into the skin on his palms. He’s too numb to care for the pain by now. “Was I a fool to think that? Were we all just idiots, blindly chasing a dream of eternity when eternity doesn’t exist?”

“Thinking like that won’t turn back time. What’s gone is gone, and we’ll just have to accept that now,” Jungsoo exhales unsteadily, and from the break in his voice and the tears still damp against his cheek, Heechul knows that he’s having a hard time believing his own words.

“It’s a name we’ve protected for half of our lives.” This time, when the tears come, Heechul doesn’t bother to stop them. “It’s a name we’ve said more than our own. It’s a name that we’ve grown to love so deeply.” This time, when the tears come, they come harshly, wrapping claws of ice around his throat and wracking his entire body with shudders that he’s too weak to fight back against. “It’s a name that-” His voice cracks on the last syllable, and he bites his lip, hard, hard enough to leave it stinging, just moments away from drawing blood. “- That’s gone now. After all this.”

“We’ll still see everyone around,” Jungsoo says weakly. “We’ll still-”

“But that’s the _problem_ ,” Heechul responds, his voice half a whisper, half a shout, trembling with grief or anger, he can’t tell. “It’s like some strange distance has been placed between us now. Like we’re swinging wildly on a pendulum between being family and strangers, like we went from standing on the same road to opposite sides, and we’re just staring blankly at each other from across, not knowing how to walk over, not even knowing how to start.” He hiccups, the taste of his tears salty against his lips. “It’s like - it’s like ‘ _us_ ’ has broken apart, and now we’re only left with…” He shakes his head. The tears are making it harder to speak. “... Just… everyone. Each individual person, right there, but now - there’s no _us_ left, Jungsoo.”

Jungsoo’s breath hitches, and the look on his face devastates Heechul. “I know,” he utters finally, his knuckles almost completely white against the wheel now. “I know. And I wish I didn’t.” He heaves a breath, like he’s gasping for air, and tilts his head to wipe at the tears roughly with his sleeve. “I wish I didn’t have to spend every night lying staring at the ceiling wondering what I could’ve done differently. What if I’d been a better leader. Wishing I could turn back time so we could do it right the next time round. Wishing that if there are parallel universes out there, then there’s one-”

He turns, and meets Heechul’s gaze, his expression haunted, eyes red-rimmed and skin pale. “- Where Super Junior manages to achieve forever.”

“Jungsoo-yah,” Heechul murmurs, his eyes flitting to the road, “Be careful.”

And through the early morning mist, a truck painted in cloudy white grime comes barrelling amidst the hazy grey, straight down a one-way street.

Heechul closes his eyes, and he hopes Jungsoo does too.

“... I hope there’s a universe out there like that, too.”

And then there’s the screeching of wheels, the shattering of glass, a piercing loudness amidst the unsettled silence. For a moment suspended in time, it feels like they are flying, hearts in mouth and screams suppressed by the tears in their throat. Falling; crashing; the sound of more broken glass, memories flashing, the feeling of time running out. Heechul reaches out, moves his hand over shards of broken glass and leather, wraps his fingers around Jungsoo’s, holds them until they stop trembling and still. 

Dark.

* * *

_Is this heaven?_ Heechul wonders mutely, staring upwards with a blank stare. All he sees around him is white; all he hears is the steady beat of his heart, a gentle one-two, one-two thrumming in his ears. He can’t feel any blood on his body, nor taste the metallic tang in his mouth. The areas on his arm where the broken glass dug into his skin - they don’t hurt anymore. He can barely feel them. Maybe his luck’s finally run out, and he really is in heaven, then.

The door creaks open slowly, and Heechul’s gaze flits to where the sound is coming from, but he can’t see without having to crane his neck. Does heaven have doors?

“Don’t move so fast. Does it hurt?” A soothing, mellow voice, and he follows the instructions, dropping his head back down and staring up at the empty white. Will things still hurt when you’re dead? He’d always assumed you’d be free to live a life free of affliction and physical pain when you’re in the afterlife. But then again, you can’t always assume things before you experience them; it seems to him that life after death is shaping out to be a little different than what he’d expected.

He turns just the slightest, making eye contact with a man dressed in all-white. “... Are you God?” he rasps out, his voice sounding a lot hoarser than he’d remembered. “You weren’t… what I imagined you to be.”

The man looks worried, crouching next to him, and that’s when Heechul belatedly realises he’s lying in a bed. “Kim Heechul-ssi,” he vocalises, slowly and carefully, his eyebrows creasing a little, “I’m your doctor. You’re in a hospital, not heaven. You’re not dead.”

Heechul freezes.

“I’m not dead?” he whispers. “But, the car - then -” A singular thought - or rather, person - crosses his mind, and he immediately tries to jolt upright, but the sharp pain that travels through his leg forces him to remain as he is.

“Don’t move so soon!” the doctor warns sharply. “You’ve suffered serious injuries, don’t aggravate them.”

“- Jungsoo,” Heechul manages to say through gritted teeth from the pain. “Is Jungsoo alive?”

The doctor fixes him with a questioning stare, and Heechul hears his heartbeat blip out of existence for a second’s wait. “Jungsoo,” he articulates again, more clearly this time. “Park Jungsoo. I-is he…” 

The look on the doctor’s face is one of blank confusion, and Heechul feels the colour draining from his face entirely. If it wasn’t a name that the doctor recognised - if Jungsoo hadn’t been admitted to the hospital, then -

“He’s _dead_?” Heechul barely manages to choke out, feeling the tears digging into the crevices of his throat. “Jungsoo-”

“Wait, wait, Heechul-ssi!” The doctor looks mildly alarmed, raising his hands in front of him in an attempt to placate his patient who is, at present, on the verge of going hysterical. “There was no one else involved in the accident but you..?”

Heechul feels his mind going blank. “I- _what_?” he utters, incredibly confounded. “But Jungsoo was right there, driving the car-”

His words only serve to make the doctor look more worried. “Distorted memory from the crash..? I suppose that’s possible too, although your upper area didn’t seem that badly affected to me,” he mutters under his breath, although Heechul catches bits and pieces of it. “Heechul-ssi, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. The only ones in the car were you and your manager.”

_My manager?_ Heechul thinks bewilderedly. “What… accident is this?”

“You were on your way home from Mokpo when the tires malfunctioned,” the doctor explains, “You ended up in hospital, with your leg fractured in several different places. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how long it’ll take to completely recover.”

Heechul forgets how to breathe.

_Mokpo?_

The only possibility that pops into his brain is too impossible to even entertain.

But he asks the question anyway.

“... What year is this?”

The doctor glances down at him, concern written all across his features. “2006,” he replies, and Heechul feels the world before him turn upside down. He scans the doctor’s face, looking for any sign of joking - but he finds none. “August 2006.”

Heechul’s heart stops beating in his chest for a moment.

2006.

On a sorrowful day like this, he finds himself nearly two decades into the past.

“Who am I?” he blurts out before he can stop himself, and the look that crosses the doctor’s face is one that he cannot read.

“Kim Heechul,” he responds eventually. “Super Junior’s Kim Heechul. I think we might need to run some more tests on you, it seems that your memory-”

“Thank you,” Heechul breathes out, effectively cutting him off, “That’s all I needed to know.”

_... I hope there’s a universe out there like that, too._

Chills rush down his spine, scattering goosebumps across his pale skin. 

It seems his luck has not run out yet.

_Our second chance is here_.

It takes a long time before he gets discharged; the wait this time is not as excruciating, since he knows exactly what his future entails. He remembers the exact date he was released the last time - this time, when the doctors walk into his room to check up on him and confirm that he’s ready to be discharged, he’s already smiling brightly.

He meets his family first - they must have been worried sick about him, even if he’s not quite the same Heechul as they think he is. But he’s in a rush to make his way back to the members after, something which his manager points out to him - “You’re not usually this enthusiastic when it comes to them.”

Heechul smiles, wondering if even his manager has noticed something different about him; the forty-year-old him is, after all, an arguably far cry from the much more hot-headed twenty-three-year-old version of him. “I missed them, that’s all,” he replies, his voice light and airy. _Much more than you think I will._

It’s only when he’s half a step away from the door of the dorm - _oh my god, the dorm, it’s been so long, I remember how much Kyuhyun cried when he had to move out at last_ \- that he freezes in his tracks, suddenly tongue-tied, not knowing what to say to the members. They would be the first to notice a change in his attitude, after all; but it’s not that easy to pretend to be a previous version of yourself, especially not with people you see every day.

And Jungsoo - will he remember? Heechul’s heart skips a beat at the thought; if Jungsoo remembers, just like him, then life would be a lot easier. A nagging feeling at the back of his mind tells him no, though, but he shoves it to the side. 

The door clicks open softly, and he’s met with far more gazes than he’s used to seeing upon entering a house. It feels so _strange_ \- instead of being greeted with his empty house and his pets as he’s used to, it’s the place he used to call home, all those years ago.

“ _Hyung_ ,” Donghae cries out, already on the verge of tears upon seeing his face, and Heechul feels something catch in his throat.

It’s 2006, he reminds himself dazedly as he stares at all the members - at their faces, their hair, their clothes, and suddenly he’s clenching his fists trying not to cry.

It’s them. It’s really them. All of them.

“Heechul-hyung!” Ryeowook practically flies up from the couch to wrap his arms around Heechul, and Donghae joins in not a second later. The other members watch with bated breath, and Heechul recalls with a wry smile that his 2006 character wasn’t the _most_ receptive of hugs, but at this point he’s too overwhelmed with emotion after seeing Super Junior as their twenty-year-old selves that he simply buries his head in Donghae’s shoulder, enjoying the warmth of their embrace.

“Heechul-hyung!” He lifts his head, and his throat constricts. _Sungmin_. “You’re alright.”

“I am,” he smiles, untangling himself from Ryeowook and Donghae, trying to hide the cracks in his voice. 

“Welcome home,” he hears another voice, soft this time, both familiar and unfamiliar all at once, accompanied by the soft patter of footsteps.

He glances to his side, and makes eye contact with Kyuhyun. He has to fight the laugh that threatens to spill past his lips; he’d almost forgotten how timid the _maknae_ used to be, standing half a metre’s length away from him as if afraid to go too close.

So this time, he makes the first move.

He walks forward and wraps his arms around Kyuhyun’s torso, feeling the younger flinch instinctively out of pure surprise. “I missed you, brat,” he laughs into Kyuhyun’s shoulder, and he means it, he really does.

A pause, and then a shy, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Heechul allows himself to cling onto Kyuhyun for a little longer before he turns, surveying the members who are beginning to gather in the living room one by one, and he’s unable to stop the wide grin that sits lopsided on his features.

“I missed all of you,” he says.

And he means it more than they could ever hope to know.

_We’re going to fix it_ , he thinks determinedly, his gaze finding Jungsoo’s through the mass of members, _This time, we’re going to fix it._

* * *

Jungsoo awakens to white walls, the smell of antiseptic, and Heechul crying into his shoulder.

“I - wha - Heechul?” His throat hurts with every word uttered, and he winces, falling quiet. Heechul shoots up, immediately wiping the tears from the side of his eyes, his smile burning with a pure, unadulterated joy that makes Jungsoo want to smile too (if his head didn’t hurt so badly).

“You’re alive,” Heechul breathes out, the relief sheer and unfiltered in his voice. “I was so scared - I was so scared you wouldn’t make it, that somehow something would go wrong and I’d lose you-”

“We’re alive, huh?” Jungsoo stares up at the hospital ceiling, his features blank. “I was so sure it was over.”

Heechul shakes his head, grasping the corner of Jungsoo’s sleeve and tugging it lightly. “You don’t _understand_ ,” he says, half-breathlessly, his eyes alight with an excitement that Jungsoo hasn’t seen since the day Super Junior had their last comeback. “This isn’t the present as we know of it, Jungsoo. This isn’t the accident that _we_ were in. We’re dead - but we’re _alive_.”

Jungsoo’s face contorts in confusion, his hollow gaze flicking to Heechul’s radiant one. “... What?”

“This is 2007, Jungsoo,” Heechul says, and Jungsoo feels his mind shut down for a moment.

“... _What_?”

He scans every inch of Heechul’s face, looking out for any telltale smirks or laughs in his voice. “This is 2007,” Heechul repeats, and Jungsoo stills, falling into a contemplative silence.

Heechul isn’t lying.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Heechul says, his eyes holding so much hope and determination that Jungsoo finds himself smiling despite himself. “I’ve been waiting a year knowing this day would come.” He reaches out and runs his fingers over Jungsoo’s hand, giving it a squeeze. It reminds him of the final moment they shared after the accident; but now, they’re alive. Breathing.

“This is our second chance.” Heechul’s holding his hand, gripping it with so much enthusiasm, his tone unwavering, and Jungsoo feels his heart soar just the slightest. “This is the universe we were asking for, Jungsoo. We’re going to fix things.”

“It’s… 2007, right?” It still hurts to speak, but he forces the words out nevertheless. “No one… has left yet?”

“Everyone’s still here,” Heechul promises, “Just like we were before.”

Jungsoo can feel the tears prickling the corners of his eyes; he lets them soak into the pillows, the smile playing on his lips despite the throbbing pain in his head. “We’re going to be okay, then,” he whispers. “We’re going to be okay.”

Heechul smiles down at him, his tone gentle. “Of course we are.”

The day Kyuhyun returns, Jungsoo and Heechul are the first to throw their arms around him. They cling to him like he’s a lifeline, and the youngest is too surprised to speak for a solid minute before he utters cautiously, “... _Hyung_ , I can’t breathe.”

They let go immediately, faces flushed with the tears that run in parallel lines down their cheeks, and Kyuhyun laughs upon seeing them. “Why are you crying?”

“I missed you,” Jungsoo tells him, and Heechul smiles from where he’s standing.

“He - _we_ \- miss you more than you’ll ever know,” he chips in with a chuckle, leaving the _maknae_ mystified. “Thank you for being alive, Kyuhyun-ah.”

Kyuhyun doesn’t quite understand, judging from the way his gaze flicks from Jungsoo to Heechul and back again in a look of complete confusion, but in the end he falls into a smile, his voice soft as he responds, “I missed you too.”

That night is the first night in a long time - especially so for Jungsoo and Heechul - that Super Junior has a meal as a full team. Jungsoo feels emotional just looking at the way they're gathered there, all of them, though he knows he'd be laughed at if he starts crying midway through dinner. Halfway through mouthfuls of rice, Jungsoo lets his gaze rest on each and every member; all thirteen of them, from Hangeng to Sungmin to Kyuhyun. Heechul looks up at him from across the table, and both of them can’t help but smile - the kind that holds twenty years’ worth of meaning contained within a single second.

It feels so strange - yet wonderful - all at once, as though fragments of his past had collided with his present, as though he's standing right back at the starting line already aware of what the finish line holds.

_But this time_ , Jungsoo thinks to himself, _we'll have a different ending._

_We’re going to fix everything._

_This time, we’re doing it right._

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed!! got too wrapped up in suju feels lately & decided to write this out of the blue lol
> 
> twitter: @kyuspetals


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